


and i'll follow you home (wherever that may be)

by Serie11



Series: Femslash February 2018 [3]
Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Adopted Children, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Family, Family Feels, Fluff, GAIA is the best grandparent and she knows it, Kid Fic, Post-Canon, Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-12 23:15:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13557654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/pseuds/Serie11
Summary: Vala's eyes were drawn to her family. Aloy was leaning over the twins, face alight and her hands making wide gestures. The girls were drinking up whatever story she was telling them. Vala chuckled to herself and washed her hands, before moving to join them – her family.





	and i'll follow you home (wherever that may be)

**Author's Note:**

> Today's prompt is: domesticity

 

Vala let the rhythmic motions she was making calm her. Crushing avery nuts made a paste that could thicken stew or could be combined with an egg to make hearth cakes, something that the children always loved. She’d sent Viva and Fall out to collect some more, with the promise that whatever they found would be used to make some hearth cakes, along with some honey that Vala had harvested from a hive that she’d found yesterday.

Across from her, Aloy was preparing the meat for the stew. She was always hunting, even now, when the machines were long since calmed, and the All Mother restored to her place overseeing the world. Vala loved the laugh lines around her eyes – they showed a history that she remembered. Aloy always claimed that Vala was the one who made her laugh the most.

With spring breaking out over the Sacred Lands, Vala could finally start on her new project. Last year, all the wheat seeds that she’d brought from Meridian had died – something about the soil not being right. Aloy had taken numerous samples back to the Carja, who had finally picked out one area that they thought the wheat might do well in. Vala ached to bring some stability to the Nora’s lifestyle. Even ten years after her Proving, and the events of the next year that had almost destroyed the Nora tribe, they still struggled to recover. Vala hoped that having some farm land would provide them with a stable food source.

A lot of the Nora disagreed with her, and so Vala was mostly trying to cultivate her farm on her own, with the help of Aloy and their children, and Varl. Of course, Varl’s help mostly came in the form of the young braves that he sent her way. They did a lot of the labour on the farm, and Varl jokingly told her that he threatened them with a day of work with Vala if they misbehaved. Somehow, she didn’t think it was that much of a joke. But since Varl was the War Chief (even though there was very little need for such a person or such a title anymore), the young braves had to follow his orders, even though Vala knew that many of them thought her farm was a waste of time.

The Matriarchs had at first claimed that it was against the way of the Nora, but they’d had a difficult time keeping that up when the All Mother herself had appeared and said that there was nothing inherently wrong with Vala’s idea to farm.

Vala had chastised Aloy for bringing GAIA into the picture, but her wife had laughed. “She did it herself! I hadn’t even said anything.” That, of course, did little to convince Vala that the All Mother _wasn’t_ in fact, everywhere like Aloy claimed.

A soft beep brought her out of her musings. Vala looked across to Aloy, who frowned lightly. “GAIA knows that we’re about to eat dinner – it must be something important.”

Vala watched as she disappeared through a door into the back of their lodge. When Vala had finally convinced Aloy to marry her five years ago, GAIA had asked her what a suitable present could be for her Alpha Prime. Vala had suggested a way to communicate with GAIA Prime in such an effective way that Aloy had little reason to leave Nora lands. Two weeks after their wedding, GAIA had presented this lodge to them. On the outside, it looked extremely similar to other Nora buildings, but on the inside, it was very different. GAIA told them that the walls were lined with reinforced steel that would insulate the house and make sure that it would never fall into disrepair. It also meant that if Vala locked the door, _nothing_ could get inside. There was running water from a ‘tap’ and the bathroom had a ‘shower’ which Vala knew was Aloy’s guilty pleasure. The fireplace was oddly designed, but meant that no smoke was caught inside the house.

Aloy’s back room was constantly synced to GAIA Prime, and at any time Vala could call up the security features that protected the house. Even all these years later, she was still sometimes a bit concerned over seeing things projected onto a screen, but she’d gotten used to it. Viva and Fall had taken to the technology to a degree that Vala hadn’t thought possible, and that even Aloy sometimes struggled with. Both of them had tablets which were connected to the house’s internal system, and GAIA communicated to them directly. She taught them ways to work with and build machines that even Aloy had trouble with sometimes, a language that GAIA called ‘code.’

Vala rarely interacted with GAIA directly, still shy at talking to the All Mother. When she did talk to her, it was mostly about the twins. GAIA claimed that things like coding were best taught to young minds, and Vala believed her. Together with Aloy, GAIA had been slowly rebuilding a system component that used to be called APOLLO. Aloy had asked for another name for this new system, and GAIA had suggested HESTIA, which Aloy had agreed with. GAIA had told Vala that HESTIA stood for the hearth and home, which sounded like good things to Vala.

Vala heard the alert sound that meant there was someone at the door, and a moment later the two twins burst through the door.

“How did your hunt for more nuts go?”

“Really good, ma!” Fall said excitedly. Beside her, Viva nodded enthusiastically. “Look at all these!”

Both girls spilled handfuls of nuts onto the bench where Vala was standing. She added them to the pile that she had, and emptied the ground nuts that she’d crushed.

“I’ll start to ground these up if you two start the stew,” Vala said.

“Okay!” Fall said. Viva grinned, her missing two front teeth making Vala’s heart squeeze painfully.

_Where’s mum?_ Viva signed impatiently. _Saw watchers!_

“Watchers!” Vala exclaimed. “I haven’t seen watchers for years. Your mum will definitely want to hear about that, but she’s in her work room right now darlings. Start the stew and you can tell her when she comes out.”

Both girls sighed but hurried over to the fireplace.

“All Mother?” Vala asked quietly. The twins both had focuses, and as soon as they entered the house they would have synched to the network. “Is everything fine?”

“Yes, Vala,” GAIA said. There was a speaker in the kitchen, and it was just loud enough for Vala to hear, but not the two girls around the fire. “Those watchers were escorting a convoy that held the metal for new tallneck parts. All planned.”

“Good,” Vala said, relaxing slightly.

“I advised the children to not interact with the machines and they did so,” GAIA continued. “They hid in the tall grass and were able to see the watchers up close.”

Vala nodded. “I’m glad they listened to you, I’ll have to tell them. Sometimes I think they listen to you more than they listen to either Aloy or I,” she said wryly.

GAIA laughed softly. “I think that’s the privilege of being the ‘cool grandparent.’”

Vala tried not to smile, but her lips curled a little anyway. She looked across to where her kids were squabbling over when to add the water and how much and if the meat or the spices or the greens should go in first. Every time she saw them, her heart tried to race out of her chest.

Aloy came back into the main area, chewing on her lip.

“Is everything fine?” Vala asked.

Aloy nodded. “Yeah, just a status report from the two units I sent across to the eastern coast. They’re reporting more radiation damage than GAIA was expecting. She’s working with some designs for cleaning up the radiation now, but wanted my input on one or two quick things.”

So, nothing that would impact them personally. “Good, good,” Vala said. “Not a new message from Vanasha, then?” She couldn’t help but putting a teasing note into her voice.

“No!” Aloy said, blushing. “Besides, you know she only wants me to come back to Meridian so she can dress me up and get me to fish for information from her contacts.”

Vala laughed. “I know, I know. Sometimes I think we should indulge her. You remember what happened the last time she got you all dressed up, right?”

Aloy’s expression turned sly. “I do remember, but I also think that there are faster ways to get what you want than having us hike to Meridian.”

“Well I know that you want the girls to know the wider world,” Vala pointed out. “And if we don’t facilitate it, then I’m not sure that they won’t convince the All Mother to let them pilot a stormbird somewhere.”

Aloy laughed. “True. But they’re still quite young.”

“They’re six this year,” Vala pointed out. “And we’d be with them.”

“I thought you wanted to look after your wheat this year,” Aloy said.

“I can do more than one thing in a year,” Vala laughed.

“MUM!”

Fall and Viva crashed into Aloy’s legs, and Aloy ducked down before picking them both up. Vala choked up as she saw them all together.

“GAIA, can you please take a picture of that,” she whispered. A second later she saw a notification pop up on the tablet embedded into the kitchen counter.

Fall was yelling loudly about the watchers that they had seen, while Viva was nodding intently and her hands were flying, adding her own contributions to the story. Aloy’s eyes were bright and intent on her daughters.

“Sounds like you had an adventure!”

“We did!” Fall said, grinning. “Oh, but mum, will you tell us a new story tonight? One from your big adventure that you went on to save GAIA!”

“Okay, a new story tonight,” Aloy promised. “But you two have to be extra good!”

Both girls nodded seriously.

“Well then go and watch the stew,” Vala said, and Aloy let them down to go and rush towards the fireplace and fight over who got to stir the pot.

Aloy grabbed the ingredients that Vala had prepared and kissed her on the cheek, taking the rest of dinner towards the pot. Vala finished crushing the rest of the nuts and put all of the crushed nuts into a bowl, which she cracked an egg into and added a bit of water to. After all, she had to make sure that Viva and Fall had snacks to eat while Aloy regaled them with her story tonight.

Mixing the ingredients together, her eyes were drawn to her family. Aloy was leaning over the twins, face alight and her hands making wide gestures. The girls were drinking up whatever story she was telling them. Vala chuckled to herself and washed her hands, before moving to join them – her family.

Around them all, GAIA hummed, pleased with what she’d helped create and with the happiness contained inside the home.

**Author's Note:**

> please cry with me about GAIA as a grandparent and cute Aloy/Vala family feels. also it's not stated in text, but Fall and Viva were adopted when both their parents were killed in a freak flood before they were six months old. Vala convinced Aloy to adopt them.... and the rest is history :'D


End file.
